


Smoke & Feathers

by astralcities



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bonding, Families of Choice, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, M/M, hi i'm kit the adventure zone and i adore that trope!, takes place less than a year after s&s!, teen because the fuck word is said, this starts off very Romantic because by god i love taako & kravitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 03:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14662748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralcities/pseuds/astralcities
Summary: Before them stands the Raven Queen.It’s silent but for quiet breaths, and Taako uses his limited mental capabilities to drink in her appearance. The goddess isn’t quite human. Not quite bird, either, but rather a mixture of the two that seems to fluctuate in its severity every time he blinks, her form melding and breaking before his eyes.It’s not an enjoyable view. Definitely in his bottom twenty otherworldly being meetings.You'd think when dating the literal Grim-fucking-Reaper you'd be able to escape the whole 'meet-the-parents' debacle. But things never work out quite the way Taako expects, and this is no exception.





	Smoke & Feathers

The ravens follow him.

Originally, he’d brushed it off as the area, thinking the ravens had been fed to the point where they were no longer afraid of creatures bigger than them. When it had happened again, a glossy black bird perching on the head of Magnus’s dog when he’d come over for lunch and a discussion about how impermissible it was of him to let said dog tear up his new pants, he started wondering if the ravens were attracted to his new perfume.

It’d only been when he’d caught Angus doodling the birds in his magic notes—“they follow me to school, sometimes“— that he’d come to the conclusion that no, this was something else entirely.

“I think your mother likes me, Krav,” Taako says when for the third time this week a fat black raven pecks insistently at the glass pane that separates them.

Next to him, leather-bound book open and unread on his lap, Kravitz sighs and drops his head to gently rest on Taako’s sweater-clad shoulder. “Her Ladyship isn’t my—“ Taako raises a lithe hand, tapping his fingers against his thumb in a crude mockery of a puppet speaking, and Kravitz elbows him in response, eliciting a yelp. “Anyway,” Kravitz says, shifting his head to rest on the open skin near Taako’s throat revealed by his scrunched up sweater. “Everyone likes you, darling. How could they not be attracted to a man with a _mongoose_  f-“

Taako cuts his boyfriend off with an insolent wink, displacing him from his spot on his collarbone as he rises to open the window, dusting chips of white paint off his hands. He makes a mental note to ask Magnus to come over later to repaint it. If Kravitz and Angus aren’t around, he can get away with a traffic-cone orange. Maybe some fairy-lights. Make the whole house look like a Fantasy Vogue construction zone.

Near immediately, the bird settles on the window ledge, silky wings fluttering as it caws, and cocks its head to the right. Taako extends a finger and pats it on the head stiffly. “Hey, Krav?”

He hums in response, turning to look at the creature as he slips a silken bookmark between the pages of the brick on his lap. Ever the aristocrat, even with his leisure activities— never mind that Taako bought it for him. Damned sap, making him, _Taako from TV_ , think of him when he sees ridiculously expensive literary supplies. Even worse, he's gone soft enough to actually spend money on them.

The bird nips at his finger and Taako draws back, stifling a curse in the hope Kravitz won’t notice. “Ever considered a pet?”

“Not particularly, no.” Taako turns to study his expression, and realizes somehow, Kravitz looks concerned at the implication that the Raven Queen might have taken a liking to him. Even more so than when Taako states that he thinks she’s after his soul, a relatively common occurrence in their home. After all, it’s not exactly typical to earn the favor of the goddess of the Astral Plane by escaping her hold dozens of times, something Angus, who takes an infuriating amount of enjoyment from teasing him, points out nearly every time the subject is brought up in his vicinity.

Speaking of his protégé, Angus should be home from school any moment now, and the gears Taako’s brain turn with mischief as he plots ways to get the kid to back him up on this. No, he doesn’t really want a bird, and neither does Kravitz, judging by the furtive glances he keeps sending at the half-open window, where Taako’s new friend is preening under his touch. What Taako _does_  want is to put on a show (Who knows— maybe the Queen‘s a fan. He’s performed for weirder audiences), and to push his boyfriend’s gold lacquered buttons a little.

Hey, it’s been a long week. He deserves some entertainment once in a while.

“I’m going to cook,” Taako states, drawing back his hand as he maneuvers past his statue-still boyfriend to the stove, and both Kravitz and the birds squawk uneasily. “Not _you_ ,” Taako amends through a snort, and makes a mental note to tease Kravitz about his bird-like tendencies later.

_Levitating_  a few pans onto the oven, Taako starts an array of Angus’s favorite dishes. Kid eats anything Taako puts in front of him and is too damn polite to ever admit whether he dislikes a dish, but years of being alert to the reactions of others on _Sizzlin’ It Up!_  have honed Taako’s discerning skills. Years of being around trickster spirits seem to have honed Kravitz’s, because he starts a little, and leans against the counter at the first scent of cinnamon in the batter Taako’s just started.

“Clever,” Kravitz says, voice warm, and Taako doesn’t even need to turn from his bowl to know his eyes are crinkling around the edges.

“Always am, Pumpkin,” Taako replies, dipping his index finger into the batter, daring Kravitz to call him unsanitary. Taako isn’t too concerned about that kind of thing anymore, now that he’s been through the absolute worst possible outcome of cooking. As he adds potatoes and oil to a pan, he uses his free hand to snap once, red and gold flames bursting into existence on the burner. He’s no Lup, but he can handle a little evocation magic. Besides, it does look cool as shit.

Without warning, there’s a warm hand on his waist, and Taako grins as Kravitz reaches around him to scoop up the newly formed mixture on his fingers.

“Ay. This kitchen isn’t gigantic, y’know. Fire hazards, and all, darlin’.” Taako bats lightly at Kravitz’s pressed suit sleeves— he swears Kravitz doesn’t know the meaning of ‘dressed down’. The only time he’s not in a fancy suit or his reaping cloak is in _bed_ — and snatches up a spatula. Disregarding the warning, Kravitz opts to drape an arm over his shoulders, and Taako melts into the touch, inhaling the scent of cooking food and something homey and familiar buried in the fabric. With a lazy stir, Taako tilts his head up to press a kiss to Kravitz’s cheek, smearing a little cinnamon muffin mix on his skin. The hand on his waist taps out a gentle rhythm and Taako almost _purrs_ , stifling the rumbling in his chest before he feels the need to click off the stove and lock lips with his boyfriend on the couch.

It’s then, because nothing is ever, ever simple with him, that the raven from the ledge jumps into the pan with the potatoes.

“ _Fuck_ , shit, fantasy _Jesus_ ,” Taako hisses as Kravitz trips backward, disentangling his arms from around him, the two of them clamoring for the screeching feathered thing. “I _said_ ,” Taako grunts, grabbing at its spindly legs, “I wasn’t going to cook you!”

His chest heaves a little as the bird struggles in his grasp, leathery skin twisting and beak pecking wildly, the pan askew on the stovetop, and dotted with floating black feathers. Kravitz stands beside him, looking somewhere between horror and amusement at that state they’re in, Taako’s braid half-undone, wisps of his blond hair framing his chin, and batter spattered across not only Kravitz’s cheek now, but his chest.

“Thank Her Ladyship this wasn’t the dry-clean only suit,” Kravitz remarks wryly, although Taako’s sure neither of them are too thankful for Her Regal Birdliness’s signature creatures.

Taako uses his elbow to knock (so much for fire hazards) the pan vaguely back on the burner, holding the bird tight to his chest as Kravitz grabs a swath of napkins and starts wiping down his suit methodically, setting the bowl down gently on the countertop.

“Any left?” He asks, swiveling side to side, and Taako fights the heat that springs to his cheeks even now at how incredibly, infuriatingly beautiful Kravitz is.

“Just this.” Taako stands as tall as he can, and kisses the smudge off his cheek in one quick motion. Now, it’s Kravitz’s turn to flush as he blinks rapidly, his dark eyes framed by thick lashes that are prettier than they have any right to be.

For a moment, it looks like Kravitz might pull Taako in for a real kiss before he startles, drawing back at the raven clawing at his boyfriend’s chest.

“Have you heard from Angus?” Kravitz switches the subject rapidly, though the sparking look they exchange makes Taako certain their previous conversation will be continued outside their kitchen. Shaking his head no, and tucking the still thrashing raven under his sweater, Taako fishes his stone of farspeech out of his pocket. Kravitz is right. Angus should be here by now, and it’s not like him to stay late without at least telling _one_  of them.

Tuning the stone’s frequency over to Angus, the pair waits as the stone buzzes expectantly.

“Oh, um, hello! Angus here,” the kid’s voice wafts through after a moment, and Taako holds back a sigh of relief. No need to get sentimental.

“Boychik,” Taako greets, and Kravitz’s brow relaxes. “Where are you?” He holds back on the ‘you’re supposed to call us if you’re hung up’ he should probably tack on the end. That’s walking the line between mentoring and parenting a little too much, even though Kravitz insists that with the brat here (his terms, not Kravitz’s, his boyfriend is too damn sweet to do anything but praise Angus) more often than not, they’ve broken that boundary a dozen times over. Taako chooses to ignore that particular sentiment.

“I’m here!” Angus chirps, his voice warbling uneasily. “I’m in a bit of a predicament—“ In the corner of his eye, Kravitz‘s hand twitches for his scythe, and it’s almost as if Angus is there, because he continues hurriedly, the words stumbling out of Taako’s stone. “— but you don’t need to come out. I can handle it, and I’ll be in in just a—“

“Hold up,” Taako interrupts, knowing damn well Angus is most likely working himself into a panic at the thought of inconveniencing them. “Here? As in, like, at the house, here?”

Kravitz slips to his side, carefully avoiding the bird in Taako’s arms, and leans over the stone to participate. “You’re safe?”

“Uh, yes and yes, sirs,” and Taako can tell from the firm line his mouth presses into that Kravitz is biting back a remark suggesting that Angus use their names rather than the worn out honorific. Just as Taako begins the process of asking when the fuck Angus studied up on _Invisibility_ , because he clearly isn’t visible in the house, Angus unknowingly cuts him off.

“Well, I’m not completely safe at the moment, but I will be soon, and—“

“Front yard or back?” Kravitz intercepts.

Angus is a fairly independent kid. Taako doesn’t hover, and he and Kravitz are still in the process of becoming fully natural around each other. The whole “Grim Reaper” thing was a bit of a hurdle, especially the whole debacle of Krav’s insanely handsome face dissolving into literal bones, although it’d quickly become a subject of interest for Angus rather than fear. It’s not every day a boy detective gets to interview a several hundred (thousand? Taako’s never asked) year old servant of the Astral Plane. Taako doesn’t interfere with his detective work, either. The kid investigates murder for _fun_ , and if nothing else, his wits and their weekly magic lessons give him enough talent to survive danger. He’d say ‘escape’, but Angus goes looking for it.

Despite this, Taako, as much as he hates to admit it, gives a semblance of a shit about what happens to Angus.

“Hang tight, kiddo,” Taako says, and Angus’s voice cuts out as he turns the frequency away.

 

* * *

 

“Oh my _Lady_ ,” Kravitz breathes, and Taako _wheezes_. This is _delicious._  Angus stands in their front yard, backpack dangling precariously from his arm and stone of farspeech clutched in his hand. His face is scrunched up in concentration, and if Taako’s not mistaken, his hands are trembling ever so slightly. Which is understandable, because there are about two dozen ravens perched on him like a park statue.

“They only eat carrion,” Kravitz assures him quickly, palms upward as he steps closer. Angus murmurs a disgruntled, unintelligible reply as he shifts his backpack to his hip, a few books tottering on the open edge.

“Just don’t die in the next thirty seconds, yeah?” Taako laughs, hand pressed firmly over his mouth as giggles bubble out, and Angus shoots him an annoyed glare.

“I’ll do my best,” he snaps, his tone quick but without venom. Taako knows that Angus won’t ask for help, doesn’t even want them to see him in a helpless position. He empathizes— he carries himself with the same damn pride. Kravitz looks at an absolute loss, so it’s up to Taako to pull their asses out of this situation, and he does, lazily extracting his wand from his pocket with a facade of nonchalance. No reason to embarrass the kid.

Casting _Suggestion_  with a lazy flick of his wand, Taako unceremoniously tossed the squirming raven under his sweater to the ground. “Leave,” he commands, and the ravens retract their talons, relinquishing their hold in Angus’s clothes as they flock off, hovering a good distance away. A quick shudder ripples through Angus’s body and he hoists his bag up, color dusting his dark cheeks as he meets them on the stairs. He doesn’t notice when Taako levitates a few books back into his bag. Kravitz does, however, and the smile tugging at his lips makes Taako want to vomit. Sentimental bastard.

“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that shit isn’t normal for them?” Taako says, stuffing his wand back into his skirt pocket.

“Not in the least,” Kravitz replies, holding the door for the three of them as they reenter the kitchen.

Barely a moment before the door clicks shut, the raven from the windowsill bursts through, feathers ruffled as it plops itself down before them. _Suggestion_  has almost left Taako’s mouth for a second time when the room goes black as pitch.

His darkvision isn’t _working_ , and Taako pedals back, right leg smacking into the heavy coffee table. It’ll bruise for sure. The darkness feels like it’s tangible, a real entity choking him, and he blinks his eyes uselessly.

Light bursts into existence, and the waves of panic clouding his head dissipate. Angus’s doing. The candles that have just seemingly lit on their own illuminate little, but he can see one thing clearly.

Before them stands the Raven Queen.

It’s silent but for quiet breaths, and Taako uses his limited mental capabilities to drink in her appearance. The goddess isn’t quite human. Not quite bird, either, but rather a mixture of the two that seems to fluctuate in its severity every time he blinks, her form melding and breaking before his eyes.

It’s not an enjoyable view. Definitely in his bottom twenty otherworldly being meetings.

“So,” Taako says, sloppily pulling his hair back into a braid, “how about that carrion, huh?” Somewhere to his right, a strangled noise escapes Kravitz, and this is far too entertaining for Taako to stop now. The Raven Queen, backlit by the now burning scented candles Taako has strung sporadically around the kitchen for a bit of light during the darker hours, doesn’t deign to respond, her looming silhouette casting dagger-like shadows across the walls.

“Not a fan?” He continues, and shrugs his shoulders. “I get it. Merle— great guy, if you’ve never met, going on time number sixty-nine avoiding your kingdom—“

Across the room, Angus snorts, and Taako feels a disquieting mixture of proud and horrified.

“—offered to cook up some trampled rabbits for us, once. I declined, but I really fuckin’ felt it. The experience resonated with me, y’know? But, you’re right, you’re right, not everyone has the taste for it.”

Within moments, the glinting, chipped beak of the Queen is less than a foot from Taako’s face, her breath sour and surprisingly icy on his skin, and Taako sends a quick prayer to Istus asking that it’s his eyes that go first, so he doesn’t have to see the results of what is absolutely going to be a gory debacle in roughly two seconds.

Her enormous feathered head tips back, and she starts hacking up mouse bones.

Not _really_ , but the noise escaping from her beak is fucking awful, to put it lightly. Taako stands posed like a statue as it continues, waiting to be sentenced to the Eternal Stockade, or having his skin clawed by the giant raven goddess, or whatever they do to beautiful elves who insult the creature who enforces death itself.

“Oh.” The noises halt to make room for the word, her scratchy voice like gravel passing through a wood-chipper, and Taako takes a moment to discern whether it’s the beginning of a curse or his sentencing. _Take your bets, folks!_  As it is, there are worse ways to go. Like having a fucking washing machine dropped on your chest, _thank you, Wonderland._

The noises start up for a moment, and just as quickly die back down, reminding Taako of the engine of Hurley’s battlewagon. _Another pretty shit way to go,_  he thinks. Getting tossed off the back of a wagon you helped build.

Really, he should be thankful. He’s had a lot of opportunities to clock out of this world, and the majority of them didn’t involve the honor of a goddess coming to personally murder him.

“You chose well,” the Raven Queen continues, flicking her glossy eyes away, and this time, it’s Kravitz who murmurs in response, a pained noise. Taako can just barely make out his kneeling silhouette, his hands folded and his head bowed in what’s either reverence or sickness. Taako won’t blame him for either, because there’s a goddess in their kitchen, and that goddess happens to smell like rotting meat, or Magnus after a long day with Carey.

When Kravitz doesn’t respond further, the Raven Queen turns to him, and Taako releases a long breath. “Rise.” It’s not a request.

Kravitz shifts and the sound of ripping paper crackles twice, and within a second, a black portal tears open at Taako’s side, and Kravitz steps out. He locks his fingers in Taako’s, and Taako can’t help a startled laugh.

“ _I’m_ supposed to be the dramatic one, lover boy.”

“You’re talking to the Grim Reaper, darling,” Kravitz whispers, lips brushing his ear, and Taako delights in seeing the worry twisting his boyfriend’s brow melt a bit. “My face literally dissolves into a skull. Neither of us is lacking in the dramatics department.”

The Raven Queen clicks her beak, and Kravitz’s hand retracts to his side. _And Kravitz denies the Raven Queen is something like a mother to him._  She’s making awkward conversation, scaring the hell out of her son’s new boyfriend, and breaking up their PDA and everything.

Actually, now that Taako thinks about it, she’d caused a distraction as soon as Taako started getting handsy. This is by far the worst “meet the parents” Taako has ever experienced.

Fortunately for his mental stability, he only gets a moment to ponder this, because within a few heartbeats, the room lights up red and gold with flames.

_Firebolt_  streaks past them, igniting a stack of magazines on the coffee table with a hiss, illuminating the faces of the four entities in the room, particularly that of one, slightly shaken, Angus McDonald. His wand is out, though the star tip is pointed at the ground and not leveled at the Queen. _About time_ , Taako thinks, stifling the warm flicker of pride that flares briefly in his chest. Brave, but not stupid. Taako raises an eyebrow and mouths a question to the kid. They’ve never learned _Firebolt_. It’s a cantrip, doesn’t take a lot of juice, but it’s evocation— not Taako’s field of study. Angus responds with a tense shrug, turning his focus back on the Raven Queen, whose inky eyes glitter with reflected flames.

“Ma’am,“ Angus starts, and Taako is mildly impressed that his voice only trembles a little, ”with all due respect, what the _fuck_  is going on?”

Kravitz’s hand is immediately back in his, fervent prayers (to who or _what_  Taako doesn’t know, because his goddess is standing _right here_ ) breezing past his lips, and every few words Taako catches the beginnings of the lecture Kravitz is going to beg Taako to corner Angus into later.

For a few seconds, the only noise is the crackle of burning paper and the breathing of the four vastly different entities inhabiting Taako’s house. He worries for a moment that she won’t respond, and even when she does, the Queen’s words are slow. “I decided it was the right time to visit.” She sends a pointed look at Kravitz, the same one Merle gives Taako when he does something Magnus-level reckless. “And ensure that the Astral Plane’s best reaper is being taken care of in the land of the living.”

At his side, Kravitz clears his throat. “I am. Very much so.”

“I anticipated this welcome from the wizard, but you, McDonald... I am sure you know it is customary to bow in the presence of a goddess,” the Queen states. There’s nothing condescending in her rough voice; there’s no command, no gloating, only a simple observation and yet a bolt of outrage strikes through Taako’s heart. Jesus. He’s gonna have to do something about that. If he gets any more sentimental over this kid, he’ll combust or ruin the cool-and-closed reputation Magnus insists he doesn’t have. Neither one a viable option.

“Well,” says Angus, his polite tone unable to fully mask the self-satisfied note that enters his voice whenever he’s proud of himself or sassing a respectable, non-Taako adult. “It’s customary to make a call rather than breaking into someone’s home, too, but here we are.”

The room stills.

Taako lasts a full five seconds before he _loses it._

He collapses to the floor, not giving a shit about whether his nice skirt is going to snag on the hardwood, because _fuck_ , they’re definitely going to die now, thank you Angus. And if by some miracle the Queen doesn’t kill him, the laughter that threatens to crack his ribs _will_. There are tears leaking out of his eyes as he clutches his chest, his nails digging crescents into previously unmarred skin.

“Angus,” he chokes out between guffaws, scrubbing with the heel of his palm at the stray droplets on his cheek, “go get my wallet and take anything you want.”

“He’s not serious,” Kravitz amends hurriedly, although he doesn’t sound fully sure.

“I know, sir. It’s a good goof,” Angus says, and Taako can barely hear him over his own laughter, and the Raven Queen’s hacking.

Wait.

Taako’s giggles die down to a more manageable frequency as he lifts his head, a sudden tiredness flooding his bones. Who would’ve guessed a run in with the enforcer of death could do that to a guy? The Raven Queen’s feathered head bobs with the noises, silken black feathers occasionally fluttering to the floor where they disappear in a puff of black smoke.

She’s _laughing_.

“You’re correct, of course,” she says, and Kravitz relaxes, visibly relieved. “Perhaps next time, you will be the ones visiting me?” She rakes her gaze over the three of them, settling on Angus. Go figure. Taako is Krav’s _boyfriend_ , and somehow the nosy little shit has won the goddess of death’s favor over him.

“Sure, homie,” Taako grins. “Invite Istus, too. Make it a party.”

The Raven Queen laughs, and the darkness enveloping the room begins to sap away, tendrils of black flowing to the Queen like ink sucked down a drain. “By the way,” she says, a black portal ripping open behind her. “Your food is burning.”

Natural light floods the room and the Queen is gone as the portal zips shut with a pop, leaving in her absence a smoking oven, a pile of ash and scorch marks on the coffee table, and a single bedraggled raven clawing at the hardwood.

“So,” Taako drawls, “How do you two feel about a pet bird?”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!! i Highly Highly appreciate comments and any feedback at all, it's what inspires me to write! 
> 
> scream w/ me about how good angus is @astralcities on tumblr & feel free to PM me for my taz writing blog (this was too long to post on tumblr).


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